Method, system and computer medium for processing bids in an auction received over different mediums

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the invention are generally, but not exclusively, related to the area of interactive auctions, particularly to interactive Internet-based auctions that may be simultaneously televised and where bidders may input bids over channels other than the Internet. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 10/490,533, filed Nov. 3, 2004, which is a non-provisionalapplication of International Application No. PCT/GB02/04353, filed Sep.27, 2002, which claims the priority from GB Patent Application No.0126127.0, filed Oct. 31, 2001 and PCT Application No. PCT/GB01/04367,filed Oct. 1, 2001. The disclosure of the above-identified applicationsis incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Data Processing System and Method The invention is generally, but notexclusively, related to the area of interactive auctions, particularlyinteractive Internet-based auctions that may be simultaneously televisedand where bidders may input bids over channels other than the Internet.

BACKGROUND

One problem associated with applying prior art auction systems tointeractive auctions is that large numbers of bids must be processed ina short space of time for the auction output to be broadcast in realtime. Many prior art Internet-based auctions take place over a longperiod of time, for example over several hours or several days, and thebid frequency is very low, so the problems are no so critical.

However, for an interactive auction that takes place in a short space oftime, for example an auction that is simultaneously being televised,there may be a high bid frequency and, in addition, the informationoutput by the auction system, such as the current highest bid and theminimum bid required, must be updated as quickly as possible. Only afast update of the status of the auction will allow viewers (forexample, on the Internet or television) to interact with the process inreal time.

A further problem associated with prior art auction systems is that alarge number of bids are entered into the auction by each bidder duringthe course of the auction.

This problem may be exacerbated by the use of proxy bidders or automaticbidding agents. Proxy bids have been used in conventional auctions andan automatic bidding agent is a known feature of prior art automatedauction systems, particularly of Internet-based auction systems whichtake place over a long period of time when the bidder is unlikely to beonline. Bidders may deploy an automatic bidding agent to monitor thestatus of the auction and to make bids, increasing the bid value asnecessary up to a pre-defined maximum amount. This allows the bidder tobe offline during the auction itself. However, each automatic biddingagent may enter many bids on behalf of a bidder in order to ensure thatthe auction item is obtained for the lowest possible price and so thissystem contributes to generating a large number of bids per bidder, mostof which will be losing bids. Both the generation of bids by running ofthe bid agents and the processing of bids contributes to load on thesystem.

The need to process large numbers of bids quickly enough to provide realtime feedback to bidders and update the list of current winners and theincreased load on the system due to automatic bidding agents inputting alarge number of bids per bidder mean that it is problematic to implementa large real time automated auction using prior art auction systems.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIPTION

The present invention aims to provide a data processing system toprocess received bids as quickly as possible in order to facilitate realtime interactive auctions and, in a further preferred embodiment, aimsto reduce the load imposed by proxy bids on the infrastructure of thebidding system.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example and notlimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements.

FIG. 1 is a schematic overview of a prior art rising price auction inwhich personal bidding agents are used;

FIG. 2 is a schematic overview of an interactive auction of one item inwhich one embodiment of the present invention is used;

FIG. 3 is a schematic overview of an interactive auction in which thereis more than one identical item available;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the history simulator output for theinteractive auction shown in FIG. 3; and

FIG. 5 depicts a falling price auction.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous details are set forth to providea more thorough explanation of embodiments of the present invention. Itwill be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that embodimentsof the present invention may be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shownin block diagram form, rather than in detail, in order to avoidobscuring embodiments of the present invention.

Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” invarious places in the specification do not necessarily all refer to thesame embodiment.

Aspects of the invention are set out in the claims below and preferredfeatures are set out in the dependent claims to which reference shouldbe made. Preferred features of each aspect may be applied to otheraspects unless otherwise expressly stated.

According to a first aspect, the invention provides a method of dataprocessing for processing bids in an auction, the auction having a livephase during which bids are accepted and an auction close followingwhich bids are no longer accepted, the method comprising: receiving atleast one bid for an item in an auction; assigning a time stamp to theor each bid received; storing data comprising a bidder identity, thetime stamp and the bid amount; preprocessing the or each bid to obtainauction status information during the live phase of the auction;subsequently processing the stored data to determine at least onewinning bid.

Preferably, at least a portion of the subsequent processing is carriedout after the auction close. Processing each received bid in two stagesmay allow the bid information to enter the auction output more quicklywhich is advantageous in, for example, a live televised and/orInternet-based auction, where auction status information needs to beupdated quickly so that bidders can participate in the auction in realtime. The time stamp assigned to each bid may allow the order of receiptof a plurality of bids to be identified during later processing of thebids. This may provide a particular advantage when bids for the auctionare received over more than one channel, for example, when some bids arereceived over the Internet and other bids are received over a telephonenetwork.

Preferably, the auction status information includes at least one of: aminimum required bid amount; a current maximum bid amount; a value orvalues for the or each winning bid.

In a preferred implementation, the method may include identifying aplurality of winning bids, for example, if there are multiple similaritems to be auctioned. The auction status information produced is usefulto the auction system in determining whether new incoming bids arewinning bids. The information may also be provided to bidders, asdescribed in more detail below, so that they may interact with theauction and follow its progress.

Preferably, the auction status information is used in the pre-processingof at least one received bid, which preferably comprises: receiving abid; determining whether the value of the received bid makes it awinning bid preferably based on a minimum required bid amount; themethod may include updating the auction status information in dependenceon the determination.

Such a pre-processing stage may extract information necessary for thebid to enter into the auction output as quickly as possible.

Preferably, data for the or each bid is output to a persistent store ordatabase (e.g. on a hard disk, tape or flash memory, or othernon-volatile, typically lower speed, medium) that holds informationrelating to all the bids for a particular auction.

Preferably, at least part of the outputting is performed in thesubsequent processing stage; this may reduce demand during the livephase as live information may be retained in faster volatile memory,e.g. DRAM. The persistent store of data may provide all of the biddinginformation for the auction and allows the “live” auction to berecreated at any time.

Preferably, at least one of the bids received is designated a maximumvalue bid wherein a maximum purchase price is specified and a bid valueis determined in response to other bids. This may allow the or eachbidder to enter only one bid into the auction rather than entering aseries of bids as the auction price rises which may reduce the load onthe auction input system enabling a bidder to “participate” withoutbeing present.

Preferably, for maximum value bids, the maximum bid value is stored, butsimulated proxy bids generated for the maximum value bid are not allstored. More preferably, only the maximum bid value is stored. This mayallow fewer entries to be stored or written to the persistent storeduring the auction which may release the resources of the auction systemto process incoming bids more quickly and to run the auction output.

More preferably, for at least one maximum value bid, the pre-processingstep is performed without determining the bid value. At thepre-processing stage, preferably it is determined whether the maximumvalue of an incoming maximum value bid is greater than or equal to theminimum required bid amount without assigning a bid value. Again, thismay speed up the process of entering the bid into the auction andupdating the auction status information.

More preferably, the subsequent processing step comprises assigning bidvalues to all winning maximum value bids, optionally to all maximumvalue bids. This enables the winning bids to be determined.

Preferably, the maximum value bids are processed in accordance with apredetermined algorithm.

Preferably, the predetermined algorithm includes at least one rule fordistinguishing between equal value bids based on at least one objectivecriterion.

Preferably, fixed value bids are processed at a higher priority thanmaximum value bids. This ensures that live bidders are givenpreferential treatment to “invisible” bids generated by the system.

Preferably, maximum value bids received earlier are processedpreferentially compared to maximum value bids received later.

A further highly preferable feature is that, for an auction having afirst plurality (n) of sale items and a second plurality (m) of validmaximum value bids with maximum values greater than a current minimumacceptable bid, a required bid value for an incoming bid is determinedbased on the number of sale items remaining (n-m) after disregarding anumber of items (m) corresponding to said second plurality of validmaximum value bids. Hence items may effectively be taken out of theauction process and assigned temporarily to the current winners who holdmaximum value bids. This may again increase the running speed of theauction system, as the minimum acceptable bid price may be determined byexamining the current winning bid prices of fewer items.

Preferably, if the number (I) of received maximum value bids is greaterthan the number (n) of sale items, pre-processing includes setting aminimum valid bid value and rejecting excess maximum value bids to leavea number (m*) of valid maximum value bids at most equal to the number(n) of sale items. This may allow the minimum acceptable bid price to beincreased in order to disregard the number (I-n) of losing maximum valuebids.

A further preferable feature is that the auction status information isincorporated into an auction output. As discussed above, this isadvantageous since it allows greater interactivity between the biddersand the auction itself. Bidders can monitor the progress of the auctionand input further bids when necessary if their original bids are notwinning bids.

Preferably, at least one bid is received over the Internet. This may beimplemented for example, by e-mail or in a live “chat room”, and mayallow close interaction between the bidders and the auction as well asfaster submission of bids to the auction system. More preferably, thebidder identifier used for bids received over the Internet is apredefined Personal Identification number (PIN) entered by the bidderupon submitting the bid.

A further preferable feature is that at least one bid is received overthe telephone network. Bids may be submitted, for example, using an SMSmessage or a voice call. This may provide an alternative bid submissionmethod which may be used by those without Internet access or for whomusing a telephone network may be more convenient.

More preferably the bidder identifier used for bids received over thetelephone network is the Caller Line Identifier (CLI). This may becollected automatically by the auction system, which again increases thespeed of the process to enter a bid into the auction.

Preferably, at least one bid is received over a first input channel andat least one bid is received over a second input channel. Preferably,one of those channels is the Internet. Preferably, one of the channelsis a telephone network. This may allow bidders a choice of inputchannel, which may allow more bidders to participate in the auction.

More preferably, the time stamps for the or each bid received over thefirst channel and the time stamps for the or each bid received over thesecond channel are correlated. Since the time stamps are assigned toeach bid upon receipt, this may allow full integration of bids receivedfrom different sources, even if, for example, full processing of atelephone bid takes longer than full processing of an Internet bid.

A second aspect provides a method of providing a persistent store ofdata for an interactive auction comprising: receiving at least one bidfor one of the at least one items in an auction; storing an identifiercorresponding to the or each bidder; storing a bid corresponding to theor each bidder identifier, wherein the value of at least one of the bidsstored is a maximum purchase price; storing a time stamp for the or eachbid to identify the time at which the or each bid was received.

Preferably, the at least one bid is received from a device thatprocesses bids according to the first aspect or any of its preferablefeatures. Hence the bid is received by the persistent store with anidentifier of the time at which the bid entered the auction and a bidderidentifier. Storing the bid data in a persistent store may also allowthe at least one auction winner to be determined directly from this dataat any time during or after the auction.

Preferably, the second aspect further provides a method of providingdata stored in the persistent store to a system for incorporation in asimulated live auction. This may allow a more interactive auctionprocess, with bidders able to observe how the bidding effectivelyprogresses throughout the auction.

A preferable feature of both the first and second aspects of theinvention is that the bidders are pre-registered users. This may allowfaster processing of each bid so that it enters the auction more quicklyand also provides easy identification of the bidder submitting the bid.Each bidder may use a predetermined personal identification number (PIN)as a bidder identifier, which may be input by the bidder when the bid issubmitted. The PIN number may be defined by the bidder during theregistration process.

Preferably, the pre-processing of bids further comprises simulating abid value for at least one maximum value bid. Hence maximum value bidsmay not be entered into the auction at their full values, but at reducedvalues, which may be set just above the value necessary to enter awinning position.

A third aspect of the invention provides a method of simulating biddingin an auction of at least one item wherein bid data, including a bidvalue and a time stamp, is stored for each of a plurality of bids, thebid data including at least one maximum value bid specifying a maximumbid amount, the method comprising estimating a bid value for said atleast one maximum value bid based on bid data for other bids and apredetermined algorithm. This may allow simulation or re-creation ofbidding in a auction without the auction system having to process largenumbers of bids from each bidder. In particular, storing maximum valuebids for at least one bidder and determining what would have been bidbased on the bid data may avoid an auction system having to processlarge numbers of proxy bids generated during a live auction on behalf ofthat bidder.

Preferably, the method of simulating bidding further comprises providingas live auction output at least one simulated proxy bid for at least onebidder having a designated maximum value bid at a value lower than thestored maximum value of the bidder's bid. This may make the auctionappear more interactive, with the simulator providing effective bids forthe proxy bidder without the auction processor having to deal with thoseproxy bids.

As for the first aspect, preferably, for maximum value bids, the maximumbid value is stored in a database of bids for use in determining awinner, but simulated proxy bids generated for the maximum value bid arenot all stored in the database.

More preferably, only the maximum bid value is stored in the database.This may allow fewer entries to be stored or written to the persistentstore during the auction which may release the resources of the auctionsystem to process incoming bids more quickly and to run the auctionoutput.

Preferably, the bid data is obtained from a persistent store that storesdata according to the second aspect of the invention or any of itspreferable features.

A further preferable feature is that the auction output includes auctionstatus information which comprises at least one of: the maximum bidamount; the minimum acceptable bid; the value of the at least onewinning bid.

In one embodiment, the initial minimum acceptable bid amount may be setto the reserve price of the auction item. This may ensure that the atleast one auction item is not sold for a purchase price lower than thereserve price of the item.

Alternatively, the method may include inserting proxy bids until thereserve price is reached.

A further preferable feature of the third aspect is that, in an auctionof a given number (n) of items, the value of the at least one currentwinning bid is determined by examining the database for the given number(n) of earliest highest bid (s). In this way, the current winning bid(s) may be determined at any time during the auction, or after itsclose.

More preferably, any of the given number (n) of earliest highest bid (s)that are maximum value bids are displayed as the current winning bid (s)at the value of one auction increment above the current minimumacceptable bid. This may encourage more bidders to take part in theauction by displaying the lowest value that the maximum value bidsrequire to win.

Preferably, the method further comprises setting a minimum acceptablebid price for the or each item, as the auction progresses, to one bidincrement above the value of the current lowest winning bid. Thisenables incoming bids to be rapidly processed to determine acceptabilityand if (preferably) the auction is output, may allow auction viewers andbidders to see at a glance the minimum required bid amount at any timeduring the auction.

Preferably, the simulated bidding is broadcast over at least one medium,such as television or the Internet.

More preferably, the simulated bidding is broadcast over two media withmutually different input/output interfaces. This may allow a largenumber of bidders and potential bidders to observe the progress of thesimulated “live” auction in real time with different criteria or detailavailable depending on the medium.

Preferably, the method further comprises updating the value of the oreach current winning bid and updating the minimum acceptable bid priceaccording to further data received during the auction.

More preferably, the method further comprises updating the value of theor each current winning bid and updating the minimum acceptable bidprice according to data stored in a persistent store. Hence bidders maybe able to follow the auction in real time as it progresses. Both newbidders and existing bidders may be able to obtain the most up to dateinformation regarding the status of the auction before submitting bids.

In a fourth aspect, the invention provides a data processing method fordetermining the purchase price of at least one item in an auction, themethod comprising determining the price of at least one item purchasedin the auction, following the close of the auction, using stored biddata.

A fifth independent aspect provides a data processing method foridentifying at least one winner of an auction, the method comprisingidentifying at least one winning bidder, following the close of anauction, based on stored bid data.

Determining the at least one winning bidder in an auction and thepurchase price of the at least one item from stored bid data may beadvantageous, since it is not necessary to store data regarding theauction winners and the purchase price during the auction. In a priorart auction system, it would be necessary to store data regarding thecurrent auction winner and the current purchase price each time a newbid is entered into the auction. This may reduce the speed at which theauction output can be generated.

Preferably, for the methods of either or both of the fourth and thefifth aspects, the bid data is obtained from a persistent store thatstores data according to the second aspect of the invention or of itspreferable features. The at least one auction winner and the purchaseprice of the at least one item may be determined from the stored data atany time during the auction or at the end of the auction.

Preferably, the process of determining the final winner may actindependently of the process providing the auction output. This maypermit the auction output process to operate more quickly, since it doesnot need to recalculate and store the identity of the winning bidder anda new purchase price for the item each time it receives a new bid.

Preferably, the value of at least one bid stored is set at the maximumpurchase price acceptable to the bidder. More preferably, the purchaseprice of the at least one item is determined without first determiningthe values of intermediate proxy bids entered on behalf of bidders whosubmit bids with values corresponding to the maximum acceptable purchaseprice. This reduces the amount of processing required to determine theat least one auction winner. It also allows the identity of the at leastone winner to be determined from the stored data, independently of theprocess simulating proxy bids for the bidder.

Preferably, the stored bid value and time stamp data for the or each bidis used to identify the at least one earliest highest bid and hencedetermine the at least one winner of the auction. This information isstored in the database of the persistent store and is therefore easilyobtainable by the process which determines the at least one winner.

Preferably, the bid value and time stamp data for the or each bid isused to identify the highest losing bid in the auction. This may be usedto set the purchase price paid by maximum value bidders for the at leastone item.

Preferably, the purchase price for any winning bidder who input a fixedprice bid is set at the value of the fixed price bid. Hence the purchaseprice for the fixed price winning bidder will be, as expected by thebidder, the same amount as was entered as the fixed price value.

A preferred embodiment of the fourth and fifth aspects may comprise:identifying the at least one winning bidder from data stored in thedatabase; identifying the highest losing bid in the auction; setting themaximum value bidder purchase price for the at least one item based onthe value of the highest losing bid.

More preferably, the method further comprises: determining whether thevalue of the highest losing bid is equal to the value of the lowestwinning bid; if the highest losing bid has the same value as the lowestwinning bid, setting the maximum value bidder purchase price for the atleast one item to the value of the highest losing bid; if the highestlosing bid has a value lower than that of the lowest winning bid,setting the maximum value bidder purchase price for the at least oneitem to one auction increment higher than the value of the highestlosing bid.

This may help to ensure that bidders placing maximum value bids obtainthe auction item for the lowest possible winning price.

A sixth aspect provides a method of providing a falling price auctioncomprising: setting a bid value to an initial maximum amount; receivingat least one indication to bid at a particular value for at least oneitem in an auction; assigning at least one of a time stamp or a bidvalue to the at least one indication to bid; storing data comprising thebidder identity and the time stamp or the value at which to input a bid;subsequently processing the stored data to determine at least onewinning bidder and the purchase price of the at least one item.

Preferably, at least a time stamp is attached to the or each indicationto bid. This facilitates post processing of the bids and may enablepriority to be given to indications to bid received earlier.

Preferably, auction data is processed according to the method of thefirst aspect of the invention. The same two-stage processing of incomingbids as used in the first aspect of the present invention may also beapplied to a falling price auction. This brings similar advantages tothe falling price auction system as it did to the rising price auctionsystem, particularly with regard to the speed with which auction statusinformation may be updated.

Preferably, the system that determines the at least one final auctionwinner and the purchase price of the item acts independently of theauction output system.

Preferably, the method may include receiving an indication to bid at aparticular value before the price of the at least one item in theauction falls to the value specified in the bid. This may allow bids tobe submitted and registered into the auction in advance and, optionally,even before the start of the auction, hence giving the auction systemmore time to process the bids.

Preferably, the method comprises producing auction status informationduring the course of the auction wherein the information includes atleast one of: the current price of the item; a list of values of thewinning bids.

Preferably, the determination of the at least one final auction winnerand the purchase price of the item are independent of an auction outputsystem.

More preferably, the auction status information is output to bidders andauction viewers during the course of the auction. This may allow theauction to be more interactive.

Preferably, indications to bid received and stored before the price ofthe at least one item in the auction falls to the value specified in thebid may further be incorporated into a live auction output. Hence thesebids may be seamlessly incorporated into the auction output as if theywere placed “live”.

Preferably, in an auction of a plurality of similar items, the purchaseprice of the at least one item is set at the value of the lowest winningbid.

According to a seventh aspect, the invention provides a method ofcalculating the purchase price of a plurality of items in a fallingprice auction comprising: determining the value of the lowest winningbid; setting the purchase price for all of the plurality of items to thevalue of the lowest winning bid.

Preferably, the falling price auction is run according to the methoddescribed in the fifth aspect and its preferable features. In a fallingprice auction with more than one item, this means that all winningbidders may purchase the item at the value of the lowest priced item.This has the advantage that there is less incentive to wait until thelast item is available to place a bid, so the load placed on the systemwhen the second-to-last item has been bid for may be reduced. Theinvention further provides apparatus for implementing a method accordingto any of the preceding aspects or their preferred features. Theinvention also provides any computer program or computer program productcomprising instructions for performing a method according to any of thepreceding aspects or their preferred features. The invention furtherprovides a data structure produced by a method according to any of thepreceding aspects or their preferred features.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference tothe accompanying drawings in which: FIG. 1 is a schematic overview of aprior art rising price auction in which personal bidding agents areused; FIG. 2 is a schematic overview of an interactive auction of oneitem in which one embodiment of the present invention is used; FIG. 3 isa schematic overview of an interactive auction in which there is morethan one identical item available; FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing thehistory simulator output for the interactive auction shown in FIG. 3;and FIG. 5 depicts a falling price auction.

By way of background, a typical prior art auction system will now bedescribed with reference to FIG. 1 which illustrates the use of personalautomatic bidding agents in a rising price auction of one item in whichtwo bids have been placed.

In this embodiment, a first bidder 60 places a maximum price bid of £8with a first personal bidding agent 64. This is translated by the agent64 to a bid of £1 and submitted to the auctioneer process.

A second bidder 62 places a maximum bid of £4 with a second personalbidding agent 66. The agent 66 translates this to a bid of £2 to out-bidthe £1 bid submitted by the first bidder 60. Each bid is submitted tothe auctioneer process 68, processed, and stored in the persistent store70.

The first bidding agent 64 submits a bid of £3 to move to the winningposition. The second agent 66 submits a further bid of £4 to hold thehighest bid. The first agent 64 places a bid of £5 and again moves tothe winning position At this stage, the second bidding agent 66 hasreached the predefined limit set by the second bidder 62, so the agent66 does not place any further bids and the first bidder 60 remains inthe winning position.

Since all the bids are stored in the persistent store 70, the winner ofthe auction and the purchase price of the item can be determineddirectly from this data. It should be noted, however, that five bidshave been processed by the auctioneer process 68 and entered into thepersistent store 70 in order to determine the winner of an auction inwhich there were only two bidders and one item. It may be noted that, inthis prior art system, for an auction of a quantity Q of items, for eachsingle bid made, up to Q+1 personal bidding agents could be activelyrebidding (multiple times each). Hence use of a conventional personalbidding agents clearly introduces a significant system load.

Another type of prior art auction is the falling price auction, or Dutchauction. In a falling price auction, the price of the item is under thecontrol of the auction engine rather than the bidders. The price startsat a maximum value and drops by a predefined increment periodically,typically with a predefined periodicity. Bidders place their bids whenthe price of the item has dropped to the amount that they are willing topay for the item. The bidder purchases the item at the price at whichthey submitted the bid.

The main components of one embodiment of the present invention will nowbe described with reference to FIG. 2. The four main components of thisimplementation of the interactive auction process are the HoverAuctioneer Process 14, the Persistent Store 18, the History Simulator 16and the Closing Price Calculator 20.

In this embodiment, two types of bid may be received by the auctionsystem. The first is a fixed price bid which enters the auction outputat the fixed price value as soon as it is received. A second type of bidwhich may be used is a maximum value bid. Either type of bid may besubmitted, for example, over a telephone network using, for example, avoice call or SMS message, or may be submitted over the Internet, forexample in an e-mail or using a live chat link. Entering a maximum pricebid into the auction system is broadly equivalent to using a personalbidding agent, as discussed earlier, to input proxy bids on the bidder'sbehalf up to a pre-defined maximum amount. However, as will beexplained, the embodiment places less load on the system than aconventional bidding agent. In the case of a maximum value bid, thebidder enters a bid at the maximum price they are willing to pay topurchase the item. This bid is entered into the Persistent Store 18 andthe History Simulator 16 uses the bid data to enter proxy bids into theAuction Output at values up to the pre-defined maximum amount.

All bids received during the auction undergo two stages of processing.The initial pre-processing step involves attaching a time stamp to eachincoming bid and preferably comprises determining whether the bid is awinning bid or not, ideally by reference to a required bid value. TheHover Auctioneer Process 14 passes winning bid information directly tothe History Simulator 16 for incorporation into the auction output;hence bids are incorporated into the auction as quickly as possible;rejected bids are stored and can be processed subsequently for analysis.The auction status information can therefore be updated without havingto process each bid fully which makes it easier to provide real timestatus information.

Further processing is then performed on the bid. The value and the timestamp of the bid are passed to the Persistent Store 18, along with anidentifier of the bidder.

The bidder identifier may be received with the bid itself, for example,it may be a PIN (personal identification number) entered by the bidderon submission of the bid, or it may be the Caller Line Identifier (CLI)number of the bidder's telephone if the bid was made over a telephonenetwork. The Persistent Store 18 stores all the bids received for aparticular auction and allows access to this data for the HistorySimulator 16. Since a time stamp is applied to the bid duringpre-processing, the secondary processing may be performed at any timeafter the bid is received, when the auction system has processingcapacity available. The stored information may then be used to providedata regarding the or each auction winner and the purchase price of theor each item auctioned.

The functionality of the Hover Auctioneer Process 14 is outlined belowin pseudo-code: obtain auction status information comprising currentminimum acceptable bid value and current maximum bid amount; For eachincoming bid; Attach time stamp to incoming bid; compare. value ofincoming bid to the current minimum acceptable bid value; Is bid valuegreater than current minimum acceptable bid value? Yes=>output bid valueto auction history simulator for inclusion into live auction broadcast;update auction status information; No=>reject bid; send bid value,bidder identifier and bid time stamp data to persistent store.

The main function of the History Simulator 16 is to provide an AuctionOutput 22 that simulates a live auction, with multiple bids beingreceived in real time from each of a plurality of bidders. Hence theHistory Simulator 16 provides the visual feedback that would have beenproduced from the personal bidding agents. The History Simulator 16 mayutilise a high-speed dynamic memory buffer, e.g. a ring-buffer, whichmay preserve only the last few entries of the history and hence limitthe amount of data stored by the auction system. The Auction Output 22may be provided over the Internet. Optionally, it may also be providedover a television network or another medium. The Auction Output 22 mayinclude information such as the minimum acceptable bid for new biddersentering the auction, a list of the present winning bids and informationabout the at least one item being auctioned (such as the number of unitsavailable and the recommended retail price of the item). The HistorySimulator 16 receives information about new bids from the HoverAuctioneer Process 14. In addition, the Simulator 16 examines theinformation held in the Persistent Store 18 and incorporates bids intothe Auction Output 22 on behalf of bidders with maximum price bids thathave values higher than the current minimum acceptable bid. Proxy bidsbased on maximum price bids stored in the persistent store are enteredinto the Auction Output 22 at values just higher than the minimum bidamount, based on the bid increment value. It is important to note thatthe incorporation of proxy bids into the output is a simulated process,independent from the processing of bids. Thus, the system processingbids during the auction need not deal with this large number of proxybids. Winning proxy bid values can be calculated from the stored biddata at the auction close.

In this embodiment, the current winning bid price and the minimumacceptable bid price are based on the Auction Output data produced bythe History Simulator 16 and not on the data stored in the PersistentStore 18. This means, for example, that if, in an auction of one item, afixed price bid is entered at £5 and a second maximum price bid isentered at £10, the History Simulator 16 would enter a proxy bid onbehalf of the maximum value bidder dependent on the auction incrementvalue, for example, a £6 bid would be entered into an auction in whichthe auction increment was £1. Then the current winning bid price wouldbe displayed at £6 and the minimum acceptable bid price would bedisplayed at £7, even though the Persistent Store 18 potentiallycontains a £10 bid.

In this embodiment, it is noted that the Auction Output 22 produced bythe History Simulator 16 will depend on the frequency with which theHistory Simulator 16 consults the data in the Persistent Store. If thefrequency is high in comparison to receipt of real bids, then moreintermediate proxy bids may be entered into the Auction Output 22 foreach maximum price bid in the Persistent Store 18 than if the frequencyis low (for example if several real bids are received between updates).

However, the at least one final auction winner and the purchase price ofthe at least one item are determined from the data in the persistentstore and so, surprisingly, this can function adequately as the AuctionOutput does not affect the price and the bidder identity correspondingto the winning bid. The winning bidders can be determined by anobjective algorithm and are not affected by artifacts of the mechanismfor processing bids. It should be noted, however, that the simulatedhistory moves immediately to the steady-state outcome after a bid isplaced.

An outline of the operation of the History Simulator 16 is given below:obtain new incoming bid information; Is bid a maximum value bid?Yes=>Add bid into auction with a value of one auction increment abovecurrent minimum acceptable bid price (if this is below the maximum-valueof the bid); No=>Add bid into auction at the fixed price value; updatelist of winning bids; update value of minimum acceptable bid and currentmaximum bid; At regular time intervals throughout the auction; Examinepersistent store data for bids with values greater than the minimumacceptable bid.

At the end of the auction, the Closing Price Calculator 20 determinesthe at least one winner of the auction and the purchase price of the atleast one item using the data stored in the Persistent Store 18; hencewinners of an auction may be determined by the time and the maximumprice of their bid alone. The bidder identifier of the at least onewinning bidder is determined from the maximum bid value data and thevalues of the fixed price bids stored in the Persistent Store 18.

If there is more than one bid with a particular value, then the timestamps can be used to determine which bid is the winning (preferably theearliest) bid. The time stamp assigned to a maximum value bidcorresponds to the time at which the initial maximum value bid wasreceived, not the time at which a winning proxy bid was entered. Ifthere is a number (n) of identical items in the auction (where “n” is anumber greater than or equal to one), then the auction winners will be anumber (n) of bidders holding the number (n) of earliest highest bids.In this embodiment, all bids are prioritised so that, if there is atleast one maximum price bidder and at least one fixed price bidder withbids of the same value, then the fixed price bidder will win against themaximum price bidder even if (as will typically be the case) the fixedprice bid was entered later than the maximum price bid. This is becausea proxy bid would only be entered in response to a real bid and, if thereal bid is at the limit of the proxy bid, a further bid would not bemade.

The Closing Price Calculator 20 then sets the purchase price for the atleast one item in the auction. The purchase price for any winning bidderwho entered a fixed price bid is set at the value of that bidder'swinning fixed price bid. For bidders who entered maximum value bids, theClosing Price Calculator 20 sets the purchase price by examining thevalue of the highest losing bid in the auction (the next earliesthighest bid after the lowest winning bid) and comparing it to the lowestwinning bid.

If the highest losing bid has the same value as the lowest winning bid,then the purchase price is set at the value of the lowest winning bid.If the highest losing bid has a value lower than that of the lowestwinning bid, then the purchase price is set at one bid increment abovethe highest losing bid.

The pseudo-code below outlines the basic functionality of the ClosingPrice Calculator 20: obtain auction bidding data from persistent store;For an auction of “n” items, rank bids in order of value to determine“n” highest value bids; If one or more fixed price bids and one or moremaximum value bids have a particular value, then rank all fixed pricebids of that value above all maximum value bids of that value; If morethan one bid of one type has a particular value, then rank those bids inorder of how early they were received; Identify the “n” highest earliestbidders as winning bidders; Determine the value of the highest losingbid; Does the highest losing bid have the same value as the lowestwinning bid? Yes=>set the purchase price of the item for all winningmaximum value bids to the value of the highest losing bid; No=>set thepurchase price of the item for all winning maximum value bids to one bidincrement higher than the highest losing bid; For all fixed price bids,set the purchase price of the item to the value of the fixed price bid.

An example of how a typical auction might operate according to oneembodiment of the present invention will now be described with referenceto FIG. 2. In this example, there is only one item available for sale atthe auction.

A first bidder 10 inputs a bid with a maximum value of £8 to the HoverAuctioneer Process 14 which attaches a time stamp to the bid. Thehistory simulator 16 determines whether the bid is higher than theminimum acceptable bid. If so, the new bid is incorporated into theauction output 22 by displaying a bid at one auction increment higherthan the minimum acceptable bid. The history simulator 16 updates thevalue of the winning bid and the minimum acceptable bid. The bid of thefirst bidder 10 is transferred to the persistent store 18, where the bidvalue is stored along with an identifier of the first bidder 10 and thetime stamp of the bid.

A second bidder 12 then submits a fixed bid of £4 over a second inputchannel, for example by telephone. This bid is entered into the auctionoutput 22 by the history simulator 16. The value of the winning bid isincreased to £4 and the new minimum acceptable bid is displayed at £5.By examining the data in the persistent store database 18, the historysimulator 16 can determine that the first bidder 10 would be willing topay up to £8 for the item. The simulator 16 therefore enters a bid of £5into the auction output on behalf of the first bidder 10 without thefirst bidder 10 themselves, or an agent acting on behalf of the firstbidder, having to enter a new bid into the process. The Hover AuctioneerProcess 14 does not record the bid, nor is it stored.

When the auction closes, the winner is determined from the data storedin the persistent store 18. Using this data, the closing pricecalculator 20 can set the purchase price of the item at one bidincrement (£1) above the next highest bid (i.e. the highest losing bidof £4) to give the correct result (£5).

It should be noted that, in this example, only two records of bid dataneed to be transferred to the persistent store in comparison with themultiple records that were transferred in the conventional auctionsystem.

A second example of how an embodiment of the present invention mightoperate is given in FIGS. 3 and 4. This example illustrates thesituation in which there is more than one item available in the auction.In this example there are three identical items, so three bidders mustbe identified as winners both during the auction and at the auctionclose. In this case, the reserve price of the items is £2 and theauction increment is £1.

The first three bids received during the auction (in this case, the bidsof bidders A, B and C; 50,52 and 54) are displayed by the historysimulator 16 as winning bids 80, providing their values are greater thanor equal to the reserve price of the item.

The three winning bids 80 are all displayed at the value of the minimumacceptable bid, i.e. the bids are all displayed at £2 in this case.

The minimum acceptable bid price is then set at one auction incrementabove the lowest winning bid. In this example, the lowest winning bid is£2, so the minimum acceptable bid price would be set at £3.

Bidder D then inputs a fixed price bid 56 with a value of £3. This bidmay be input over a different medium, for example over the telephonenetwork. This is entered into the persistent store and is displayed bythe history simulator 16 at as a winning bid 82 at the fixed price of£3. Bidder D becomes a winner, replacing Bidder C since Bidder C holdsthe most recently received lowest value bid.

The history simulator 16 examines the data stored in the persistentstore 18 however, to discover that Bidder C is willing to pay up to amaximum of £4 for the item in the auction. The simulator inputs a bid onbehalf of Bidder C at the value of the minimum acceptable bid of £3.Bidder C replaces Bidder B, the holder of the most recent lowest bid andthe updated winners list 84 comprises Bidders A, D and C.

The history simulator 16 again consults the data in the persistent store18 and finds that Bidder B is willing to pay up to a maximum value of £3for the item. The simulator inputs a bid of £3 on behalf of Bidder B,replacing Bidder A with Bidder B in the list of winners 86.

The minimum acceptable bid value is increased to £4, since all of thewinning bids are at £3.

Finally, Bidder E inputs a bid 58 with a maximum value of £5. This datais stored in the persistent store 18 and the history simulator 16 entersa bid of £4 (at the value of the minimum acceptable bid) on behalf ofBidder E. Bidder E replaces Bidder D on the list of winners 88 sinceBidder D entered the most recent lowest bid.

If the auction then ends, the winners are again determined independentlyby the closing price calculator 20 using the data in the persistentstore 18. The three winners are identified as the three bidders with theearliest highest bids, in this case Bidders B, C and E.

The purchase price of the item for all of the winners is set at oneauction increment higher than the value of the highest losing bid (i.e.the next highest earliest bid after the winning bids).

As stated above, these descriptions of possible embodiments only provideexamples of the operation of the auction system. The example of anauction with three items available can easily be generalised to caseswhere there is any number of items (“n” items).

A third example of the operation of one embodiment of the invention willnow be described with reference to FIG. 5 which illustrates a fallingprice auction with two items and three bidders. The initial item priceis £10 and the amount drops by £1 every 2 minutes.

After four minutes the price of each of the items has dropped to £8. Thefirst bidder 90 submits a bid to the Hover Auctioneer Process 14. TheHistory Simulator 16 updates the status information in the AuctionOutput 22 to show that one of the two items has been taken and thatthere is only one remaining item available. The bid data is thentransferred to the Persistent Store 18 where the bidder identifier(which may be a PIN of a registered user or the CLI number of the user'stelephone) is stored along with the value of the bid.

No further bids are received until the price of the item in the auctionfalls to £5. At this value, a second bidder 92 registers a bid. This caneither be done interactively by the second bidder 92, or it may be donethrough a maximum price bid entered into the Hover Auctioneer Process 14before the start of the auction or before the price of the item reaches£5. The maximum price bid would be stored, along with a bidder identity,in the Persistent Store 18 until the price of the auction item drops to£5. At this point, the History Simulator 16 would take the bid detailsand incorporate them into the auction to show that the second item hadbeen bid for at a value of £5.

Since there are only two items available in the auction, the second bidends the auction. The bid of the third bidder 94 is not submitted intothe auction output since the auction has ended before the price of theitem drops to £4.

As in the rising price auction, when there is more than one indicationto bid at a particular value, priority may be given to indications tobid received “live” during the auction. Alternatively, it may bepreferable in some instances to give priority to stored indications tobid, received before the start of the auction, or before the price ofthe item falls to the specified value.

The Closing Price Calculator 20 uses the data in the persistent store todetermine the auction winners and the purchase price. The two highestbids in the Persistent Store 18 win the two available items. If there ismore than one bid with a particular value then the earlier bid(s) win.If there is more than one item in the auction, the purchase price forthe item may be set at the value of the lowest bid received. In thiscase, the value of the lowest bid received is £5, so the closing pricecalculator 20 sets the purchase price of the item to £5 for both of thewinning bidders.

Modifications may be made to this system and features may be providedindependently of other features or in other combinations unlessotherwise stated.

Other features of the present invention will be apparent from theaccompanying drawings and from the detailed description which follows.

Some portions of the preceding detailed descriptions have been presentedin terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations ondata bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the ways used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations leading to adesired result. The operations are those requiring physicalmanipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily,these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capableof being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwisemanipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasonsof common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements,symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion, itis appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or“determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action andprocesses of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device,that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical(electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers andmemories into other data similarly represented as physical quantitieswithin the computer system memories or registers or other suchinformation storage, transmission or display devices.

Embodiments of the present invention also relate to an apparatus forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise ageneral-purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by acomputer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may bestored in a computer readable medium. A machine-readable medium includesany mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readableby a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable (e.g.,computer-readable) medium includes a machine (e.g., a computer) readablestorage medium (e.g., read only memory (“ROM”), random access memory(“RAM”), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flashmemory devices, etc.), a machine (e.g., computer) readable transmissionmedium (electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagatedsignals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.)),etc.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specializedapparatus to perform the required method operations. The requiredstructure for a variety of these systems will appear from thedescription below. In addition, embodiments of the present invention arenot described with reference to any particular programming language. Itwill be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be usedto implement the teachings of embodiments of the invention as describedherein.

In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the invention have beendescribed with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. Itwill be evident that various modifications may be made thereto withoutdeparting from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as setforth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are,accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than arestrictive sense.

1. A computer-implemented method of data processing for processing bidsin an auction, the auction having a live phase during which bids areaccepted and an auction close following which bids are no longeraccepted, comprising: receiving a plurality of bids for an item in anauction; assigning a time stamp to each bid received; storing datacomprising a bidder identity, the time stamp, and a bid amount;preprocessing by a processor of a data processing system each bid toobtain auction status information during the live phase of the auction;and subsequently processing the stored data to determine at least onewinning bidder, wherein at least one bid is received in a first formatover a first input channel and at least one bid is received in a secondformat over a second input channel and at least one of the bid receivedover the first input channel and the bid received over the second inputchannel is reformatted on receipt for storage and preprocessing,formatting the auction status information for broadcast over a firstoutput medium with a first input/output interface, the first outputmedium comprising the Internet, and formatting the auction statusinformation for broadcast over a second output medium with a secondinput/output interface, the second output medium comprising a televisionbroadcast system; and simultaneously broadcasting the auction statusinformation over the first and the second output mediums, wherein avideo output is broadcast over the second output medium, the videooutput incorporating the auction status information.
 2. A methodaccording to claim 1 wherein the first input channel is the Internet. 3.A method according to claim 2 wherein the bidder identifier used is apredefined Personal Identification number (PIN) entered by the bidderupon submitting the bid.
 4. A method according to claim 1 wherein thesecond input channel is a telephone network.
 5. A method according toclaim 4 wherein the bidder identifier is a Caller Line Identifier (CLI).6. A method according to claim 1 wherein the time stamps for the atleast one bid received over the first input channel and the at least onebid received over the second input channel are correlated.
 7. A methodaccording to claim 1 wherein at least one of the bids received isdesignated a maximum value bid specifying a maximum purchase price andwherein a bid value for the maximum value bid is determined in responseto other bids.
 8. A method according to claim 1 wherein the auctioncomprises a falling price auction.
 9. A data processing apparatus forprocessing bids in an auction, the auction having a live phase duringwhich bids are accepted and an auction close following which bids are nolonger accepted, the apparatus comprising: a receiver for receiving aplurality of bids for an item in an auction, the receiver including afirst interface for receiving at least one bid in a first format over afirst input channel and a second interface for receiving at least onebid in a second format over a second input channel; a data store forstoring data comprising a bidder identity, the time stamp and the bidamount; a processor arranged for: reformatting at least one of the bidreceived over the first input channel and the bid received over thesecond input channel for storage and preprocessing; assigning a timestamp to each bid received; preprocessing each bid to obtain auctionstatus information during the live phase of the auction; subsequentlyprocessing the stored data to determine at least one winning bidder; andformatting the auction status information for broadcast over a firstoutput medium with a first input/output interface, the first outputmedium comprising the Internet, and formatting the auction statusinformation for broadcast over a second output medium with a secondinput/output interface, the second output medium comprising a televisionbroadcast system, and at least one transmitter for broadcasting theauction status information simultaneously via the first and the secondmedia with mutually different input/output interfaces, wherein a videooutput is broadcast over the second output medium, the video outputincorporating the auction status information.
 10. Apparatus according toclaim 9 wherein the first input channel is the Internet.
 11. Apparatusaccording to claim 10 wherein the bidder identifier used is a predefinedPersonal Identification number (PIN) entered by the bidder uponsubmitting the bid.
 12. Apparatus according to claim 9 wherein thesecond input channel is a telephone network.
 13. Apparatus according toclaim 12 wherein the bidder identifier is a Caller Line Identifier(CLI).
 14. Apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the time stamps forthe at least one bid received over the first input channel and the atleast one bid received over the second input channel are correlated. 15.A method according to claim 9 wherein at least one of the bids receivedis designated a maximum value bid specifying a maximum purchase priceand wherein a bid value for the maximum value bid is determined inresponse to other bids.
 16. A computer-readable storage mediumcomprising instructions for implementing a method for processing bids inan auction, the auction having a live phase during which bids areaccepted and an auction close following which bids are no longeraccepted, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of bids for anitem in an auction; assigning a time stamp to each bid received; storingdata comprising a bidder identity, the time stamp and the bid amount;preprocessing each bid to obtain auction status information during thelive phase of the auction; subsequently processing the stored data todetermine at least one winning bidder; wherein at least one bid isreceived in a first format over a first input channel and at least onebid is received in a second format over a second input channel and atleast one of the bid received over the first input channel and the bidreceived over the second input channel is reformatted on receipt forstorage and preprocessing; formatting the auction status information forbroadcast over a first output medium with a first input/outputinterface, the first output medium comprising the Internet, andformatting the auction status information for broadcast over a secondoutput medium with a second input/output interface, the second outputmedium comprising a television broadcast system; and simultaneouslybroadcasting the auction status information over the first and thesecond output mediums, wherein a video output is broadcast over thesecond output medium, the video output incorporating the auction statusinformation.